Peter Bell the Third | Page 3

a state not more unreal?Than the peace he could not feel,?Or the care he could not banish.
13.?After a little conversation,?The Devil told Peter, if he chose,?He'd bring him to the world of fashion?By giving him a situation?In his own service--and new clothes.
14.?And Peter bowed, quite pleased and proud,?And after waiting some few days?For a new livery--dirty yellow?Turned up with black--the wretched fellow?Was bowled to Hell in the Devil's chaise.
PART 3.
HELL.
1.?Hell is a city much like London--?A populous and a smoky city;?There are all sorts of people undone,?And there is little or no fun done;?Small justice shown, and still less pity.
2.?There is a Castles, and a Canning,?A Cobbett, and a Castlereagh;?All sorts of caitiff corpses planning?All sorts of cozening for trepanning?Corpses less corrupt than they.
3.?There is a ***, who has lost?His wits, or sold them, none knows which;?He walks about a double ghost,?And though as thin as Fraud almost--?Ever grows more grim and rich.
4.?There is a Chancery Court; a King;?A manufacturing mob; a set?Of thieves who by themselves are sent?Similar thieves to represent;?An army; and a public debt.
5.?Which last is a scheme of paper money,?And means--being interpreted--?'Bees, keep your wax--give us the honey,?And we will plant, while skies are sunny,?Flowers, which in winter serve instead.'
6.?There is a great talk of revolution--?And a great chance of despotism--?German soldiers--camps--confusion--?Tumults--lotteries--rage--delusion--?Gin--suicide--and methodism;
7.?Taxes too, on wine and bread,?And meat, and beer, and tea, and cheese,?From which those patriots pure are fed,?Who gorge before they reel to bed?The tenfold essence of all these.
8.?There are mincing women, mewing,?(Like cats, who amant misere,)?Of their own virtue, and pursuing?Their gentler sisters to that ruin,?Without which--what were chastity?
9.?Lawyers--judges--old hobnobbers?Are there--bailiffs--chancellors--?Bishops--great and little robbers--?Rhymesters--pamphleteers--stock-jobbers--?Men of glory in the wars,--
10.?Things whose trade is, over ladies?To lean, and flirt, and stare, and simper,?Till all that is divine in woman?Grows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman,?Crucified 'twixt a smile and whimper.
11.?Thrusting, toiling, wailing, moiling,?Frowning, preaching--such a riot!?Each with never-ceasing labour,?Whilst he thinks he cheats his neighbour,?Cheating his own heart of quiet.
12.?And all these meet at levees;--?Dinners convivial and political;--?Suppers of epic poets;--teas,?Where small talk dies in agonies;--?Breakfasts professional and critical;
13.?Lunches and snacks so aldermanic?That one would furnish forth ten dinners,?Where reigns a Cretan-tongued panic,?Lest news Russ, Dutch, or Alemannic?Should make some losers, and some winners--
45.?At conversazioni--balls--?Conventicles--and drawing-rooms--?Courts of law--committees--calls?Of a morning--clubs--book-stalls--?Churches--masquerades--and tombs.
15.?And this is Hell--and in this smother?All are damnable and damned;?Each one damning, damns the other;?They are damned by one another,?By none other are they damned.
16.?'Tis a lie to say, 'God damns'!?Where was Heaven's Attorney General?When they first gave out such flams??Let there be an end of shams,?They are mines of poisonous mineral.
17.?Statesmen damn themselves to be?Cursed; and lawyers damn their souls?To the auction of a fee;?Churchmen damn themselves to see?God's sweet love in burning coals.
18.?The rich are damned, beyond all cure,?To taunt, and starve, and trample on?The weak and wretched; and the poor?Damn their broken hearts to endure?Stripe on stripe, with groan on groan.
19.?Sometimes the poor are damned indeed?To take,--not means for being blessed,--?But Cobbett's snuff, revenge; that weed?From which the worms that it doth feed?Squeeze less than they before possessed.
20.?And some few, like we know who,?Damned--but God alone knows why--?To believe their minds are given?To make this ugly Hell a Heaven;?In which faith they live and die.
21.?Thus, as in a town, plague-stricken,?Each man be he sound or no?Must indifferently sicken;?As when day begins to thicken,?None knows a pigeon from a crow,--
22.?So good and bad, sane and mad,?The oppressor and the oppressed;?Those who weep to see what others?Smile to inflict upon their brothers;?Lovers, haters, worst and best;
23.?All are damned--they breathe an air,?Thick, infected, joy-dispelling:?Each pursues what seems most fair,?Mining like moles, through mind, and there?Scoop palace-caverns vast, where Care?In throned state is ever dwelling.
PART 4.
SIN.
1.?Lo. Peter in Hell's Grosvenor Square,?A footman in the Devil's service!?And the misjudging world would swear?That every man in service there?To virtue would prefer vice.
2.?But Peter, though now damned, was not?What Peter was before damnation.?Men oftentimes prepare a lot?Which ere it finds them, is not what?Suits with their genuine station.
3.?All things that Peter saw and felt?Had a peculiar aspect to him;?And when they came within the belt?Of his own nature, seemed to melt,?Like cloud to cloud, into him.
4.?And so the outward world uniting?To that within him, he became?Considerably uninviting?To those who, meditation slighting,?Were moulded in a different frame.
5.?And he scorned them, and they scorned him;?And he scorned all they did; and they?Did all that men of their own trim?Are wont to do to please their whim,?Drinking, lying, swearing, play.
6.?Such were his fellow-servants; thus?His virtue, like our own, was built?Too much on that indignant fuss?Hypocrite Pride stirs up in us?To bully one another's guilt.
7.?He had a mind which was somehow?At once circumference and centre?Of all he might or feel or know;?Nothing went ever out, although?Something did ever enter.
8.?He had as much imagination?As a pint-pot;--he never could?Fancy another situation,?From which to dart his